Maybe nanny got it right – plain packaging is already working

In this guest posting, Tony Prysten reckons that plain cigarette packaging is already having an effect on smokers.

A long term campaign can have short term benefits – even if today’s media can’t quite see past the now.

Working with Quit Victoria over the past few years has given me a rare insight into some of the significant moments and campaigns that will positively change lives for many in the years ahead.

The world-first introduction of plain packaging over two weeks ago passed with relatively little fanfare. Interestingly much of the debate centred around smokers and whether this would affect their smoking. Social channels and comments on articles were rife with smokers proudly claiming this would have no effect on them, was a waste of money and is further evidence we are living in a Nanny state.

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It’s a simple proposition – put cigarettes in packaging that is not only magnificently ugly but also gives a true picture of the devastating harms of smoking in the hope that our kids don’t even think about taking up the habit. It’s a long term play and Quit have maintained that the true results of this will not be seen for some time, supporting many smokers’ claims that this was a waste of effort.

Smokers can have a tendency to feel that the world is against them however this time, strategically, plain packaging legislation was focussed squarely on future generations, a message often lost in the media.

Maybe that’s not so surprising. With today’s 24 hour news cycle, instant reporting on social media and desire to engage audiences (code for write stuff that makes them respond), the media chose not to focus on the campaign’s objective – let’s face it, six year olds aren’t going to comment on the herald sun website – instead targeting current smokers’ attitudes towards the campaign.

Surprisingly, early indications of a ‘side effect’ of this strategy show that plain packaging might be having an effect on current smokers. Since the introduction of the new packaging, calls to the Quitline have increased at a time of year when calls generally decline (December). Despite smokers saying plain packaging would have no effect on their smoking, many are commenting on their cigarettes tasting worse as well as going to considerable effort to hide their cigarettes (do you mean hide the warnings?) and feeling awkward in social situations.

Basically smokers are finding it hard to have a single cigarette without being confronted with the lethal consequences.

Anecdotal research on social channels is also showing a similar trend; from denial “Got a flip top tin to keep them in. Not that the warnings bothered me anyway”, to the sickening “I want mouth cancer because I was Bryan last time #plainpackaging” (For non-smokers out there, this refers to smokers choosing the least offensive packs when buying cigarettes). While many smokers (or cigarette companies commenting as smokers) are fiercely defending their habit, many others are being motivated to try quitting.

Like the introduction of compulsory seat belts I am sure we will look back on this legislation as a significant moment that changed the lives of the next generation. Already, on a global stage, Australia is being recognised as being truly progressive.

I only need to look at my two young kids and think this time, nanny got it right.

It is going to be great for the economy as well – by creating new industry.
I already heard that cigarette cases are making a huge comeback and one guy in Qld is going to manufacture sticky labels that you can get personalised to put onto your pack!

In NSW now almost 90% of people don’t smoke. Of the 10% who do 90% want to give up. So putting the boot into smokers is an easy one, as you’ve got the overwhelming majority on your side. That’s why politicians love to sidle up to the anti-smoking lobby because it’s the ONE thing that gets bipartisan support no matter your political leaning. Over the past two decades we’ve turned smokers into such pariahs, such outcasts, that it’s now so socially unacceptable, you’d have to think the business (thankfully may I add) has an extremely precarious future in this country. And that’s something the media industry should be proud to have played a part in.

I quit before the new packaging came in. I was completely desensitised to the old packs. I think the new laws are a great idea but they really should change the designs every six months or so. People will get used to them. I used to change the channel when some of the tv ads came on. As a smoker you get in a routine of addiction, advertising and packaging are often the only things that reminds you of the harm you are doing to yourself. I’m incredibly grateful for the work people have put in that helped me quit.

So when are they going to look at the enormous problem on a broader demographic scale that alcohol is causing for a vast and denied number of Australians? Or is it a taxation income negative to discourage this poison as well? Is it a case that health care budget expenditure in the case studies of harmful substance consumption is pitched against the income to big business and government that is gathered? Not an activist comment but a rational look at the thinking behind these issues?

It is definitely working.
Try and buy a packet of cigarettes and the guy behind the counter has no idea which packet to give you, and if you don’t have the right descriptor – like “mild advanced smooth” you have no chance.
Pure genius!

Well it should get bipartisan support its a product known to cause serious harm, specifically designed and modified to be addictive. If you put a few hundred carcinogens and pesticides in a milk carton, threw in some addictive additives and went to FSANZ they would probably not look very positively on your submission.

Plus as far as I am aware the numbers are still up at around 20 per cent. That is one-in-five people. That is not an insignificant “pariah” group that’s well over 4 million people.

Perhaps just as important as nanny getting it right was the tobacco companies getting it wrong in their predictions it wouldn’t work. Given the momentum the elimination of smoking has gathered we may live to see it die out alltogether. Along with the remaining smokers.

I suppose that the bong and spliff smokers of NSW were not included in the statistics.
What about pipe and cigar smokers? I think the entire anti smoking lobby is an appalling blot on our society, and the way people have been bullied into submission is nothing short of horror.

I am not a smoker, but I support the right of others to smoke if that is what they want.
We may well pat ourselves on the back and smirk at the people huddled on the footpath outside of office buildings, pathetically dragging on a gasper, before running back inside and into the lifts that will return them to the floor where they work. Spare a thought for the teens who are on the bongs and the joints, the crack and the party drugs and the booze.

I have definitely noticed a recent attitude shift in some of my friends,
the joy and bravado has gone out of their smoking.
It hasn’t made them quit, but they’re more aware that they have an addiction (a few try to give up every NYE) and are some now just wish we’d stop selling them all together so they’d be forced to give it up.
Definitely something they wouldn’t have said a year ago.

It may just be my social circle and not reflective of broader groups of people, but it’s a definite shift in their attitude I’ve picked up on over the last year.

It would be far more effective if the Australian Government would embrace tobacco harm reduction. Electronic cigarettes have gotten me off my 20 yr tobacco smoke addiction since the first day I took a drag on an ecig. I’ve been tobacco smoke for over a year now. Instead of gruesome labelling, the Australian government should be advertising safer alternatives such as electronic cigarettes and snus. The gruesome pictures on the cigarette packs will do nothing to stop smokers lighting up. It is a waste of space.

Ross, the guy in Qld is unlikely to have hit on a successful long-term enterprise. When graphic health warnings were introduced in 2006, a similar phenomenon occurred – i.e. entrepreneurs hoping to capitalise on (and thereby subvert) good public health policy marketed cases for concealing the warnings. Turned out that the people who bought the cases were most likely to quit, because they were most affected by the warnings. Could well be that those who go to the trouble of buying stickers to glam up their plain packs will also quit in higher numbers, because they are most affected by the change in packaging.

Tk, I couldn’t agree with you more. Alcohol is a far bigger problem for society and families than smoking (even at the height of its powers) ever was or will be. Don’t you love the passion people put into the smoking debate, but ask those same people to discuss Alcohol and their tune changes. Their “Denial” all of a sudden kicks in. It is so uncool to query the impact of alcohol culture. So many people simply cannot have a good time without getting wasted on booze. I had a total of three drinks at my Christmas Party and had a great time.

@TK it is a simple and indisputable fact that EVERY cigarette does you harm. Every drink does not do you harm. Why do people persist in thinking they are equal and using that fallacy to mount an argument against tobacco restrictions? A false premise can only produce an invalid argument.

Hi Groucho. Thanks for your reply. Points of clarification regarding what I wrote: I do not suggest that they are harmful on an equal basis albeit it would be naive to consider that there are not many many deaths related to alcohol – whether by destroyed organs and associated disease or death by suicide or misadventure. Not to even mention violence including at a suppressed domestic level or the fact that alcohol related incidence affects many innocent individuals that were totally sober at the time some drunk caused harm; There is no suggestion in what I wrote that mounts an argument against tobacco restrictions if that is the motivation for that comment from you – it is merely suggesting that ALL addictive substances that are harmful or misused need to be considered in a balanced way on a cultural level; And I agree that a false premise will not form a solid basis or proposition as a basis for a theory – however I make no establishment of any premise in what I wrote – I merely suggest that the energy given to the premise of anti-tobacco could be applied to the substances being abused in society at, as I say, a broad demographic level. Yes every smoke does do harm so you make a true statement there, but as I point out, just because a lot of people consume booze responsibly, this does not make it any more acceptable to turn a blind eye to the mammoth problems that the ‘must include booze” culture creates! And finally as a non-confrontational statement – I have yet to meet the super-person that can drink alcohol and consider that there is absolutely no effect on their bodily systems or persona. Cheers.

@TK I take all your points and don’t really disagree. I do get irritated when the anti tobacco argument gets muddied or diluted by other subjects such as alcohol. In my view tobacco is the biggest of the problems. Big tobacco has spent millions muddying the waters right down to paying PR companies to post counter arguments on blogs such as this. In many cases the majority of such posts are paid by the appearance ones ( I am not suggesting by the way that you are one of these, your case is too well argued) The same thing happens with alcohol of course but to a lesser extent. Every smoker is harming themselves and people around them. The right to harm themselves is theirs, the right to harm others is not. Most of the people who have a few drinks this holiday season will harm no one.Add a cigarette and harm always results. So, take care, drink responsibly, but don’t smoke or get close to people who are.

But, Groucho is saying that you CAN drink alcohol responsibly and without harm to you or others. Just one puff of a cigarette is harmful = a big difference.

I certainly agree that we have serious issues in Australia concerning alcohol. In Australia we have inherited the north European (drink as much as you can in an evening) habit. It is far different in Southern Europe. The problem is institutional and we do need to try to address it and fix it.

The current antismoking crusade is much like previous crusades. It is a social-engineering, eradication crusade decided upon in the 1970s by a small, self-installed clique of fanatics operating under the auspices of the World Health Organization (the Godber Blueprint http://www.rampant-antismoking.com ). This little, unelected group decided for everyone that tobacco-use should be eradicated from the world. These fanatics were speaking of secondhand smoke “danger” years before the first study on SHS, together with advocating indoor and OUTDOOR smoking bans. Secondhand smoke “danger” is a concoction, a masquerade for what has been a moralizing, social-engineering crusade from the outset. The plan this time has been to essentially ban smoking in all the places that people typically smoke, i.e., de facto prohibition. The current antismoking social-engineering assault is physician-led, just like the eugenics insanity/catastrophe in America and Germany early last century.

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The damage that has been done over the last 3 decades, a “salami slice” at a time. Here’s a brief history of the antismoking madness (Godber Blueprint) over the last few decades:

The first demand for a smoking ban was in the late-1980s concerning short-haul flights in the USA of less than 2 hours. At the time, the antismokers were asked if this was a “slippery slope” – where would it end? They ridiculed anyone suggesting such because this ban was ALL that they were after.
Then they ONLY wanted smoking bans on all flights.
Then the antismokers ONLY wanted nonsmoking sections in restaurants, bars, etc., and ensuring that this was ALL they wanted.
Then the antismokers ONLY wanted complete bans indoors. That was all they wanted. At the time, no-one was complaining about having to “endure” wisps of smoke outdoors.

While they pursued indoor bans, the antismokers were happy for smokers to be exiled to the outdoors. Having bulldozed their way into indoor bans, the antismokers then went to work on the outdoors, now declaring that momentary exposure to remnants of smoke in doorways or a whiff outdoors was a “hazard”, more than poor, innocent nonsmokers should have to “endure”.
Then they ONLY wanted bans within 10 feet of entrance ways.
Then they ONLY wanted bans within 20 feet of entrance ways.
Then they ONLY wanted bans in entire outdoor dining areas.
Then they ONLY wanted bans for entire university and hospital campuses and parks and beaches.
Then they ONLY wanted bans for apartment balconies.
Then they ONLY wanted bans for entire apartment (including individual apartments) complexes.

2
On top of all of this, there are now instances, particularly in the USA, where smokers are denied employment, denied housing (even the elderly), and denied medical treatment. Smokers in the UK are denied fostering/adoption. Involuntary mental patients are restrained physically or chemically (sedation) rather than allow them to have a cigarette – even outside.

At each point there was a crazed insistence that there was no more to come while they were actually planning the next ban and the brainwashing required to push it. There has been incessant (pathological) lying and deception. Many medically-aligned groups have been committed to antismoking – their smokefree “utopia” – since the 1960s. They have prostituted their medical authority and integrity to chase ideology. All of it is working to a tobacco-extermination plan run by the WHO and that most nations are now signed-up to (Framework Convention on Tobacco Control).

We can see the pattern here. The concocted SHS “danger” concerned a minute statistical risk of entirely questionable causal basis for LIFELONG (30, 40, 50, 60 years) exposure to SHS from spousal smoking. Around 99.9+% of those exposed to SHS over a lifetime have NO elevated statistical risk of disease. Yet with the propaganda promoting the idea that SHS is bio-weapon-like, unlike anything else on earth, we now have many delicate and dainty nonsmokers “running the gauntlet” of smokers at building entranceways, hand cupped over mouth, terrified that they might inhale a whiff. This is the promotion of mental dysfunction (e.g., anxiety reactions, hypochondria, somatization). And the irrationally terrified then demand “protection”. It is fully to be expected as a result of incessant inflammatory propaganda. And this is typically what happens when the medically-aligned Public Health goes on its social-engineering, deranged ideological crusades. Fanatics/zealots/extremists are toxic minds that produce a bigotry/supremacist bandwagon that will keep pushing as far as society allows them.

This has all happened in just 20 years. If it was mentioned 20 years ago, or even 10 or 5 years ago, that smokers would be denied employment and housing and smoking bans in parks and beaches, it would have been laughed at as “crazed thinking”. Yet here we are. It’s all happened before and it has all been intentional, planned decades ago. We just don’t learn or we’re going to have to learn the very hard way because it has to do with far, far more than just smoking.

This is an example of the Big Tobacco sponsored idiotic argument. Their denial ,if they bother, can only be credible if they argue against this post. If nothing else we need to keep the lid on to stop too much of this getting out!

You must have both racked your minds to slap together a few inane sentences. Zealots over the millennia are the same and their useful idiots – the easily brainwashed – are too. You’re cowards. You’ll ride whatever bandwagon that gives you a sense of [fake] superiority. Here’s a news flash, guys. You’re not superior. Quite the opposite; you’re just run-of-the-mill, ignorant, easily manipulated bigots.

BTW, Gav, do you even comprehend what Godwin’s Law refers to? Those with even a little sensibility, something you obviously haven’t yet attained, don’t attempt to use concepts they don’t understand.

The ‘oh but look at alcohol” argument is always bogus. At it’s heart is the idea that you can’t act on smoking until every other problem in the world has been solved. If it wasn’t alcohol it would be “the money should be put into stopping pedophiles”.

Warning labels on alcohol are inevitable. In 10 years pictures of inappropriate roots will be on wine bottles.

You monkey, your repeating like an ape what you’ve been told without observing or thinking.
That is plain packaging in name only. It is black packaging with a bloody great supergraphic of someone dying.
Has no one ever heard of the placebo effect or Eriksonnian suggestion? Believe me they operate very well. You now have a very subliminally effective disease generator for suggestable personalities, those who cannot give up, or those that don’t want to. You might want to think about why the psychopaths that rule us gave out digital T.V. to anyone that couldn’t afford the digital transfer. Wonderful shows like Anatomy for beginners, where human beings are carved up for entertainment, and Police shows where everyone is a scumbag but the Mason coppers, a bunch of PTSD psychopaths that enjoy bullying and beating people, who now shoot unarmed tourists and 14 year olds with impunity. If a copper is killed it’s mandatory life for the perpetrator, but if your kid gets killed he can get off in 5 years, with a 2 on the bottom for good behaviour; if hes got $250,000au he can get off entirely. I’ve witnessed it. Equality or political bias. Your second rate and just a taxable commodity to them, and it make no difference who you vote for, while the Government borrows it capital from the foriegn owned reserve bank. Who has the money makes the rules.
Your all asleep, and a great deception is at hand.
The medical system is butchered but you can watch T.V. shows that subjugate and put you down psychologically, or are basically tangible distractions to keep you on the treadmill.
They care about us, yeh right. If you don’t wake up you’ll deserve what they are planning.

Secondary issues that are basically no bodies business but the person involved in the habit are being used to divide you, and deprive you of the only valid attribute that gives you any power over the political 100 or so psychopaths ruling you. UNITY.
Global warming,pleeeaase. Been to Exmouth lately and seen the massive amounts of electrical energy bounced off the ionosphere in the name “Auroral research”. Probably not.
The vapour trails that just never leave, that have now replaced with nocturnal high altitude bombs full of Christ knows what. The weather and atmospheric conditions “are” strange but it’s no accident.
Catalytic convertors make car exhaust largely invisible, but go breath whats coming out for a few seconds. There a ten billion of them pumping crap, but not a word from the smoking lobby.
Mass shootings, that just “pop” up after 200 years of largely responsible gun ownership with no regulation. Now the only people with guns are crooks and coppers, executives for the political apperatus set to walk all over the lot of us.
Carbon tax, no shortage of carbon it’s the most common element on earth, they can tax you till your skin and bones from labour. GST, Income tax , If I came and asked for or stole 20 bucks, most likely, you’d all scream to high heaven, but becuase its the mass media hypnotist Government (govern=control mentis=mind) you gladly forfeit, in somes case almost half your earnings. I’d love to call you all genious’ but tell me, would it be pandering to your egos or have some basis in reality?
Income tax was a temporary measure implemented during WWI and promised to be given back after the war, they just didn’t thats all. But lets all whine about smoking shall we.
Funny the way the the FED was implemented in 1913 or 14 here, 1911 in the states I think, then we have WWI; very convienient timing, then Spanish flu, a direct relative of the bird flu virus, and thats already been “suggested” by the media. Ever wonder why Sinatra called the media “whores and prostitutes” back in the 70’s. I advise you to look into it.
I’d be surprised if you get to read any of my posts, and even more surprised if a lynch mob isn’t formed to contradict them.
We are all being had, and you are all making it very easy for them. Mean while, I’m going to have a cup of tea and a rolled cigarette, and you half aware control freak anti-smoking lobby members that just never shut up and are abusing individual rights like true typifications of psychopaths, its none of your miserable whining business. The smoking lobby that care so much for my health, when baraging me on a break with quit mimes when I replied “I don’t want to quit and its none of your stinking business”, as they preached, then bid me the joyous parting comment, “I hope you get cancer”.
Me too.The sooner I’m off this planet of busy body but malevolent self confessed genious’ and Dudly Doright that can’t see the forrest for the trees the better.

1 Black coloured packaging increases smoking in young males via their death/rebellion drives. Fact. It is completely and utterly the wrong colour and it makes me shudder that something so obvious could be unknown, or that the appropriate academics not be consulted prior to production so it could be picked up on.

2 The health warning currently on cigarette packs about Bryan who died age 34 complete with his healthy mugshot as an inset captioned “Ten Weeks Earlier” is one of, if not the, most effective pieces of advertising in history. I paid $17 just to keep a copy of the box. Absolutely brilliant.

3 Anyone arguing that every smoke does you harm must also (to be rational and in any way consistent) agree wholeheartedly that allowing any animal or sentient being to consume any alcohol whatsoever then be allowed to drive a car is nothing short of idiotic.

4 Australia’s attitude towards alcohol is Australia’s biggest problem. If Australian’s attitude towards alcohol does not change radically very soon, it will bring about the undoing of us colonial Australians in favour of more sober and mature immigrant Australians who will be granted responsibility of the country. The choice will control the choosers on that one.

5 The key to getting young people to quit or not take up smoking is so easy and glaringly obvious, 10 points and a golden star to the first person who writes what specific part of health awareness we need to scare/discourage/educate them about…….

@History and anyone else who wants to defend smoking on psychological, historical or any other grounds – I don’t want to breathe your dirty, stinking, second-hand toxic smoke. If you want to smoke, whether or not you believe it’ll kill you, do it where I don’t have to go home at night with the filthy stench clinging to my hair, my clothes, the inside of my lungs… It’s disgusting. Keep it to yourself.

I can’t stand the smell of filthy diesel powered ridiculously oversized 4WD’s (or SUV’s for the AmericaniZed) uselessly being driven by their socially irresponsible pilots all over the city whilst chugging out clouds of putrid black smoke. I shouldn’t have to sit behind you choking when you take off at the lights… regular petrol fumes are far less offensive.
How many of the people here complaining of having to deal with SHS drive one I ponder curiously? C’mon… hands up.
Probably a high percentage because the “I’m the only person in the world attitude” carries over.

I’m now using a cigarette case that was my grandfathers, I now feel classy, the ladies love it…. I have also cut down on the number i smoke per-day as the case only holds 9 . And it fits better in my jacket pocket too!

Smoking vs Alcohol – this is not the argument. All the points are valid. But tell me do any of you live with an Alcoholic?? I don’t remember seeing anywhere where people were killed in a car accident for being of .05 smoking, or beating their wife because they had too much to smoke. Or not being able to go to work because they had too many cigarettes. Smoke yourself to death if you want to I don’t care. Be self serving and defend grog. You have no clue.

SInce plain packaging, My smoking habits have actually increased. The main reason for this is that the brand of cigarettes I smoke have not been available since plain packaging laws were introduced. The available brands just do not do the trick and I tend to oscillate between brands, trying to find a suitable replacement. As a result, I actually have increased my consumption from 25 – 28 per day to 35- 40 per day. Personally, I would like to put on a spike the persons head for introducing this legislation.

On another issue, the hype surrounding smoking is very similar to the which hunts of England and Salem in the United States. Smoking is not allowed in al fresco dining, yet a few feet away, vehicles can emit toxic fumes on a scale that makes cigarette smoking insignificent to say the least. People will happily crucify a smoker walking by, yet go happily eating as petro chemical fumes silently saturate them with toxins. In addition, the toxic fumes from cars have a far great impact on the health of the population than any other toxic consummable.